European World: Demography & Kinship- Lecture
Outline
D=The study of populations- size, composition, mobility
Basics: size
1500
England & Wales 2.5
Netherlands
2.3
Germany
12
France
16.4
Italy
10.5
Spain
6.8
Ottoman Empire
12
Russia
Poland/Lithuania
7.5
1600
4
3.1
16
19
13.1
8.1
18
1700
5.2
3.9
12
20
11.3
7.1
13
11
16th c- substantial rise; 17th c-slowdown/reverse
High birth rate: 40 births per 1000 per year (3x today’s)
Low life expectation at birth: England 34 for the nobility; Paris region, 17th c, c23;
always slightly higher for women.
Age structure: weighted towards the young. Only half of children reach maturity.
England- 25% die before age 10; Northern France, 25% die before age 1; parts of
Castile, 40-50% die before age 7. Overall half the population was made up of children
and teenagers.
Population checks: Thomas Malthus: populations expand until they outstrip resources,
are then checked by famine/disease/war (often inter-related)
--Famine- follows cold/wet summers and bad harvests; ‘Little Ice Age’ in the 17th c
(River Thames freezes regularly). Hunger & malnutrition make population more
susceptible to disease.
--War: 30 Years War (Germany, 1618-48)- leads to est. 20% fall in population, not
made up by 1700. English Civil wars (1640s) kill c 180,000- 3.6 of population (higher
% than in World War I and II)
--Disease- plague returns regularly after Black Death of 1349 until final major
outbreak in 1665. Venice, plague kills 27% in 1575-6. Other epidemics- typhus,
smallpox, influenza.
Death in childbed- ‘Only’ 1 in 100 births led to mother’s death. But over a lifetime, 67 births= 6-7% chance of dying. Women feared childbirth.
Did humans (try to) control their own fertility? Some evidence of contraceptive
measures, mainly herbal (ineffective); evidence of abortion; abandonment of newborn
babies, esp.in large cities and towns.
More important- delaying marriage, esp in hard times.
Hajnal (in Glass & Eversley, Population History), identified a distinctive ‘European
marriage pattern’ marked by late marriage and high levels of people never marrying. -Late marriage: late 20s+. A response to hard times: poor needed longer to save
enough to marry. That meant women had a shorter fertile period within marriage,
reducing number of births. A woman who married aged 30+ only had an average 2
children.
--Remaining single. Figures vary, 5-25%, higher in hard times. Rich married young
(or not at all). When times were hard, parents could only afford to marry off one or
two of their offspring. Single men might keep mistresses or visit prostitutes; spinsters
in Catholic countries were steered towards convents (Florence 1552: 441 male friars,
2786 nuns)
Family and kinship. In northern Europe the nuclear family was dominant (husband,
wife, children). But the family/household often contained members not biologically
related- maidservants, male apprentices or farm servants.
In the Mediterranean lands, including southern France, and the Balkans, extended
families- 3 generations, e.g. married children still living with their parents; or adult
brothers and sisters living with the householder. Patterns shaped by custom, by the
agricultural needs, and by local inheritance arrangements. :
Geography: where did people live?
Mainly in the countryside. 1500- only a handful of cities with 100,000+ (Paris, Milan,
Naples, Venice- and Istanbul, Cairo. By1700- London, Rome, Amsterdam, Madrid.
too. Most cities had only 10-15,000 inhabitants.. By 1700, Netherlands had highest %
of its population in towns (25%), followed by Italy.
Cities were very unhealthy places: high mortality rate (disease, poor sanitation). How
did they grow?- by in-migration from the provinces. The ambitious (seeking careers
in politics, trade, or the professions- or just seeking excitement) and the desperatepeople pushed off the land, drifting in search of work or charity, often ending in crime
and/or prostitution.
Long –distance migration. Religious refugees (asylum seekers): Jews fleeing Spain
after 1492; Flemish Protestant fleeing mid-16th c; French Huguenots (Protestants)
after 1685; Puritan exodus to New England in the 1630s (70,000). Plus ethnic
cleansing- the Moriscos driven from southern Spain 1609-14.
Economic migrationj: settlers seeking better opportunities- in Ireland and Virginia;
Spaniards moving into Granada to take land off the Moors; Spaniards migrating to
Spanish America.